Manufactured semiconductor devices are tested by a tester so as to allow good and bad devices to be distinguished, so that only the good devices are marketed. In this case, a kind of automatic equipment called a ‘test handler’ is used to support the test processes using the tester. Such a test handler includes a pick-and-place device, which is used to transfer semiconductor devices between different loading or aligning elements, such as customer trays, test trays, aligners, buffers and sorting tables. The pick-and-place device has at least one pick-and-place module.
Furthermore, the pick-and-place module includes a plurality of pickers, which are arranged in a line to perform the operation of sucking and holding semiconductor devices or releasing the held semiconductor devices using vacuum pressures.
Meanwhile, the customer tray is used to load semiconductor devices for the purpose of storing the semiconductor devices. For this reason, it is preferred that the customer tray be configured so as to load as large a number of semiconductor devices as possible. As the sizes of semiconductor devices having the same function have been becoming smaller due to the development of semiconductor manufacturing process technology, increasing the number of semiconductor devices which can be loaded onto the same customer tray (which is of a limited area) became possible. For example, under the assumption that eight semiconductor devices can be conventionally loaded onto a customer tray in a single row, if the sizes of semiconductor devices become smaller due to the development of semiconductor manufacturing process technology, it becomes possible to load ten or twelve semiconductor devices onto the same customer tray in a single row. In this case, the interval between the semiconductor devices which are loaded onto the customer tray ten or twelve per row becomes narrower than the interval between those semiconductor devices which are loaded onto the customer tray eight per row.
Accordingly, when a test handler supplies customer trays, and when the customer trays change from ones on which eight semiconductor devices are loaded in a single row to ones on which ten or twelve semiconductor devices are loaded in a single row, or vice-versa, the intervals between pickers provided in the pick-and-place module of the test handler must also be adjusted. However, there is no means for adjusting the intervals between pickers in order to achieve applicability to all customer trays, though they differ from each other in the number of semiconductor devices loadable in the same area. Accordingly, when the customer trays having different capacities are supplied, changes to corresponding pick-and-place modules must be performed.
Furthermore, the time required to transfer semiconductor devices can be reduced only when a single pick-and-place module is provided with a plurality of pickers corresponding to the number that is necessary to hold all of the semiconductor devices, which are loaded on a customer tray in a single row. In the case where a customer tray, on which eight semiconductor devices are loaded in a single row, is replaced with a customer tray on which ten or twelve semiconductor devices are loaded in a single row or vice-versa, the number of pickers must be increased or reduced. However, in a conventional pick-and-place module, the number of pickers cannot be increased or reduced, so that a problem occurs in that the entire pick-and-place module must be replaced.
The above-described problems cause the reuse rate of resources to be reduced, with the result that resources are wasted and, in addition, a replacement cost is increased.